FOR all of those counting the cost of cuts to women in Scotland, the numbers are starting to feel overwhelming. Figures from the Fawcett Society tell us that 85p in every pound of the £26 billion in cuts to public services, pay, pensions, and social security has come from women’s purses.
Yet more overwhelming are the stories from women about the herculean task of living life while simultaneously trying to deal with less money in their pockets and reductions in the services they desperately need.
There is a gloomy litany of statistics that sketches out women’s inequality. Twice as much of women’s incomes comes from social security. More than nine out of 10 lone parents are mothers. Six out of ten carers in Scotland are women, and women are twice as likely to give up paid work in order to care.
Liz* was told that she would be sanctioned if she didn’t seek work by applying for jobs online. She has no phone, internet access, or computer skills. Emily was in a Women’s Aid refuge for 26 months, waiting to be rehoused. Eventually she accepted a two-bedroom property, even though, as a single woman, she would have to pay bedroom tax. She receives discretionary housing payments, but has to reapply every three months and has been told that this payment may not continue.
Ewelina is a Polish national whose ex-husband was recently charged with raping her. He is on remand in prison. She is not entitled to housing benefit and her entitlement to JSA has expired. Maria goes for days without eating so that her children have enough food.
Poverty threatens women’s health and wellbeing. It also throws up fundamental barriers to women’s ability to take part in society. The national conversation about who we want to be and the society that we want to live in cannot truly be described as national if so many people lack the means to take part. Four out of 10 Glaswegians can’t join in the online debate about the future of Scotland, because they have no access to the internet. So many women can’t scrape together the bus fare to get to the foodbank, let alone one of the many meetings that is pondering the state of the nation.
My organisation, Engender, has been working hard with others across Scotland to make women’s experience of “welfare reform” visible. We’ve been joined by Scottish Women’s Aid, Close the Gap, Scottish Refugee Council and SCVO in compiling a set of calls for Scottish Government action. Westminster has responsibility for the big social security programmes, it’s true. Currently, theScottish Government’s Welfare Fund is mitigating some of the effects of welfare reform, and post-Smith will have some new powers to tweak the design of welfare benefits. What we’re calling for is creative connections to be made between welfare and our shared ambition to realise women’s equality in Scotland.
*All names have been change
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